Designs & Designers

This is a fascinating and an authoritative history of the Purdy Boat Company, one of the most famous makers of custom yachts and racing boats in the 1920s and 1930s, based on official company documents and correspondence and on reminiscences of family members and boat owners, and augmented by many photographs and line drawings of classic Purdy boats.

Jay Benford's work in designing a series of offshore cruisers has helped get many people
started following their dreams and sailing the world. These designs are by far and away the most
economical, affordable offshore cruisers, the most boat for the money and very quickly built.
This means that you not only get cruising for less money but you can do it much sooner.
Something to think about!…

A catalog of plans for great cruising boats, sail and power, for living aboard.

First published in 1975 and since become a classic of its kind, Cruising Designs is a collection of basic boat plans of a variety of Benford designs, ranging in size from 7 to 131 feet in length, selected from the custom designs created over the past three decades.

Cruising Sailboat Kinetics demystifies boat design terminology and concepts. It opens up for recreational sailors a new world of understanding why sailboats act the way they do. It explains how boat designers transform sailing dreams and abstract design criteria into today's sleek, functional three-dimensional craft.

In his own words, it is "an account of many happy years of building, designing and living with small boats; with plans and illustrations of some of these boats, and the circumstances under which they were conceived."

Along with his warm and cheerful autobiography go the stories behind the making of a dozen of his more famous ships, together with the drawings and details of their construction.